What to Know
People were not happy about Jeff Bezos’ involvement in the Met Gala this year, and some activists decided to take action. In the days leading up to the controversial fundraising event, a group of activists visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art to hide little bottles of (fake) urine with Bezos’ face on them.
A British political activist group called Everybody Hates Elon took credit for the stunt and posted about it on social media.
The stunt was meant to make a statement about how Amazon treats workers.
The company has faced allegations of strict productivity standards that don’t even give workers enough time to use the bathroom, requiring them to urinate in bottles instead. Amazon has denied these allegations before, USA Today reported.
Days before the Met Gala, the activist group shared a video that showed members of the group placing the bottles of fake urine in different locations around the museum. “Urine Trouble Jeff!” the group captioned the video. “Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is chairing the Met Gala THIS Monday. His own workers sued him for being forced to piss in bottles, while Jeff is worth $280bn. So while the Met Museum gets ready for his glitzy do, we delivered them OVER 300 bottles of piss.”
They clarified that the urine was fake, and sarcastically wrote, “Hope Kim Kardashian doesn’t find these on Jeff’s big night :(” over the video.
It’s the kind of art that some people could actually get behind.
To many critics, though the Met Gala is a fundraising event for the museum, it comes across as a way for rich people to flaunt their wealth as ordinary Americans struggle to afford the necessities. The fact that Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez, were sponsors and honorary co-chairs this year certainly didn’t help the event come across as less out of touch.
The theme this year was “Costume Art,” but some people online appreciated the urine bottles with Bezos’ face on them more than they appreciated attendees’ luxurious outfits. Reacting to the urine bottle stunt on Instagram, one person called it “the only Met content I’m interested in.” Someone else wrote, “Interactive art!!! Always a favorite,” and others called the stunt “brilliant.”
The urine bottles also became a topic of discussion on Reddit, where people seemed a bit less impressed—or, at least, less convinced that it would make any impact.
People understood the message, but didn’t necessarily agree with the execution.
Several Redditors expressed concerns about who would actually be impacted by the urine bottles. They argued it probably was not Bezos. “This won’t even slightly inconvenience him,” one critic argued. “He won’t see them. He won’t be picking them up and binning them.”
Another critic added, “I recognize the message that this is attempting to send, but all they’re doing is making some poor cleaning crew on minimum wage scourge the museum for bottles of pee. It’s not Kim Kardashian finding these.”
In response, though, another critic argued that whether the Kardashians saw the urine bottles or not, the stunt still sparked conversations and helped raise awareness. They wrote, “This is just an accessible way for the wider public, like you and me, to engage with the Met gala and to carve out spaces, like this one, to discuss the disgusting level of wealth that they’re flaunting.”
And, overall, while not appreciated by everyone, the protests still might’ve been more popular than other aspects of the event (or at least more popular than Bezos is, anyway). “I am loving the creativity of the protests, more than I’ve ever loved any of the Met Gala gowns,” a Redditor concluded.
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